Random Excellence: NASA

This image is of a Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) print sold at auction on Valentines Day. It was part of a group of either 22 or 30 prints—the listing is a bit unclear—that were part of an exhibit entitled "Sightseeing; A Space Panorama," which opened at the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in 1985 and subsequently toured to 65 institutions all over the world. The exhibit was seen by more than by six million visitors. The prints were sold by Swann Auction Galleries in its "Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks" sale two days ago. The pre-auction estimate for the prints was $15,000 to $25,000 and the actual hammer price, comfortably exceeding the estimate, was $43,750.

I've always liked this photograph (which an art school friend referred to as "Couch Potato in Space") and at first I was worried that I had posted it on the blog before—but the one I was thinking of was a different image, in this post on the anniversary of the moonwalk in 2009.

Mike

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Dave Levingston: "Back in 1969, when I was a newspaper photographer, we had an open house at the paper and one of the features was a moon rock which came with a Marine Corps guard and a pretty woman in a shiny silver mini-dress. As part of the preparations I helped install a set of those Cibachrome prints throughout the newsroom. Many years later the newspaper built a new building and those prints went in the dumpster when they moved."

Comments

[John Masters]

This photo of Bruce McCandless, Earthrise, and the shot of Buzz Aldrin by Neil Armstrong you linked are three photos I love to sit and examine.
Being born in 1962, the whole space race was part of the backdrop of my childhood, and I was interested in it when I was way too young to understand how amazing all the NASA accomplishments were. If I had had my way, my parents would have raised me on a strict diet of Tang and Pillsbury Food Sticks because that's what I though astronauts ate all the time.
At 54, photos like this one still give me "chicken skin." (My cousin's term for goose bumps.)
I've lived in Brevard County, Florida where Kennedy Space Center is for twenty years now, and I have rarely missed any kind of launch from there in those years, even if it's just to watch from my front yard from thirty miles away.
In two days, on February 18, Space X will try it's first Falcon 9 launch since their launch pad explosion in September 2016. (https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/events/events-calendar/2017/february/rocket-launch-spacex-crs-10)
We don't get many deeply touching, human photos anymore from space programs, but it's all exciting still.
Here's what a night launch looks like from my front yard, when I'm too lazy to drive closer to the Space Center and Canaveral Air Force Station in the wee hours. (https://jamasters.smugmug.com/Time-Exposures/i-P5r6hsw/XL)

[Matt]

Maybe it's because I was a kid in the 80s, and so this image was rather prevalent in my younger years, but I absolutely love it. I'd really like to see a large print of it in person.

Anyone know if there is a coffee table book that collects truly amazing human space-flight images like this?

[Michel]

reminds me of one of my favourite things. This movie and animation recreating the occasion of the capture of the Earthrise images. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to be so far and see our planet as a small disk rising over the horizon of another celestial body.

https://youtu.be/dE-vOscpiNc

[John Krill]

I think all the NASA images are available for download on the NASA site. A few years back I downloaded the famous Earth shot. Sorry I don't have the link.

[K4kafka]

Nice to see such auction price$ going for NASA (US) property. Yes, the tax payer$ paid for it...

[If it was made for an exhibit back in '85 and the exhibit was seen by six million people, I'd say the taxpayers are done with it. Just sayin'. --Mike]

[Oskar Ojala]

I like how the photo is the ultimate example of the "location is everything" idea in photography.

[John McMillin]

But it's a Cibachrome, and Cibachromes are forever!

[Bryan Hansel]

Isn't this image available for free from NASA? It should be public domain. If a nice scan was done, it would be fun to print this as one of your print offerings.

[Patrick Dodds]

Thanks for posting that picture - I've always loved it.

[John H.Seidel]

"Couch Potato in Space" heh, heh, heh. Love that. Everything Apollo is my favorite. That was an amazing time. Here's a link to lots of Apollo era photos. http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

[Geoffrey Heard]

Composition is a bit ordinary! LOL!

Seriously, if they can show with animation and stuff how Earthrise was made, and of course they can, that will be prize ammunition for the doubter nuts who still claim none of it happened.

Cheers, Geoff

[Dave New]

I have a short stack of poster-size Apollo photographs printed on heavy cardstock, which include the above photo and others you've featured.

When I was co-oping at Marshall center, one day the gift shop in the basement announced they were giving away excess stock. I scored the photos, and a nice coffee-table sized book of the Apollo program, which I also still have. I pull them out occasionally to look at.

I was in the engineering cost group and helped prepare the Shuttle program cost estimates for Congress. That was 40 years ago...